


Hands

by thephilosophah



Series: old fics i never got around to posting [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 21:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13326354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophah/pseuds/thephilosophah
Summary: the boys' hands, and what those say about each of them





	Hands

Hercules Mulligan’s palms are wide and rough from one too many stray needles. They’re scratched and hurt in a telltale way that gives away the care he can have. Flipped over, every knuckle of his fingers is rough and experienced, bled open one too many times. His smile is wide but it’s stopped reaching his eyes. Long ago. He’s been around since. Long ago. He knows more and fights more and does more and his eyes widen when he becomes relevant.

The Marquis de Lafayette is tall and fast. His head nods to a rhythm that’s never there. His words stumble and his hands fly to cover the gaps of his tongue, gestures wide and far and long and the point gets across, but not before he’s made himself present. His feet itch with the urge to run and his throat with the urge to scream for this country. He fights. He helps. He jumps back and forth shedding sweat and blood until he’s the single most important factor and the words fly out of his mouth with such an ease it’s sometimes hard to catch all of them. His head nods to the beat of the gunshots, or maybe it’s his own heartbeat. They always sounded alike.

John Laurens has freckles on his nose and fire in his eyes, his hands are made to punch and punch fast. He knows how to run and knows when to hide. His voice is loud, his ideas louder. He doesn’t know where each of the scars came from, why one of his arms hurts more than the other, why his feet go numb when he’s tired. He can’t be bothered to remember every blow he’s thrown, and certainly not every hit he’s taken. His coat is stained red. It wasn’t enough.

Alexander Hamilton. Alex, bastard, orphan, immigrant, his eyes are bright but the skin around them is tired and gray, when was the last time you blinked? His face under sunlight is ash and he squints like the light punched him. Under candlelight he looks more human, more alive, but that’s only because you can’t make out the dark circles and scars and hollow cheeks. His right shoulder is always stiff, and he cracks it. Loud. All the time. The pads of his thumb and forefinger are rough and he has calluses on the third knuckle of his middle and ring fingers.

Alexander Hamilton, Ham, Hammy, the little lion, has a pair of burning eyes and the aim of a veteran, yet he’s never held a gun before. His knees are bruised and his skin is soft and breaks with every hit and scars over. He’s scrappy and loud and scared and dives into every fight. His knuckles are covered in nothing but scar tissue, and they never really heal over.

Alexander Hamilton, A-dot-Ham, Secretary of Treasury, is tired and gray like the skin around his eyes. His hand trembles and sometimes it reaches for a quill, sometimes it reaches for a gun that’s not there. His other hand has a sole piece of jewel on it, and it’s the only thing that shines on him, apart from his eyes; those never lost their light. The rest of him did.

 


End file.
